


Of Choice

by thedevilchicken



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 06:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken





	Of Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [panickyintheuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/panickyintheuk/gifts).



The Ocean knows Moana better than she knows herself.

People think the Ocean begins and ends at the shore of their island, but they're wrong about that. The Ocean is _everywhere_. It's in the rivers that flow down from the hills and the lakes where the children swim and the rain that falls down from the sky. It's in the ground and in the trees and in the food they eat. It's in them, too, in the most minute part of them, flowing in their veins. The Ocean is everywhere, and it knows everything. It knows every _one_ , and so it knows Moana. When it chose, it knew exactly who it was choosing. 

The Ocean waited centuries for her. And when it first saw her, first felt her, first followed the currents of thought inside her head, it knew. It had tested so many others over the years, hoping maybe they'd be the one, but it was her: Moana of Motunui. It knew what she'd do long before she did. Even now, it knows her better than she knows herself, and so it has one last thing in store for her. 

Moana likes to sail. Her people call it wayfinding, and it comes to them almost as naturally as breathing does, how they skim the Ocean's surface with their boats as they navigate from one island to the next. The Ocean leaves clues for them sometimes, in its waves and squalls and currents, and they learn to read them. Moana knows how to read the clues the Ocean leaves for her, except lately she thinks she's having trouble because she always ends up somewhere she didn't plan to go. 

"You again!" she says, as she jumps out of her canoe into the waves at the island's shore. She sounds exasperated as she wades from the water and onto the sand, but she doesn't look exasperated. She looks confused. She looks amused. 

"You know, you don't have to pretend," Maui replies. He's stretched out on the sand in the afternoon sun and he turns to her, grinning, his head propped on one hand. "It's okay. I know I'm irresistible." 

She rolls her eyes. She drops down onto the sand next to him, cross-legged, and puts her head in her hands. 

"I didn't come here on purpose," she says, muffled against her palms. 

"This is what, the twelfth time in six months?" Maui replies, and she peeks at him between her fingers. "You're just gonna have to face it, princess; way down deep inside, you like me." He waggles his brows. She groans. She flops onto her back on the sand. 

"Waaaaay down deep," she mumbles, underneath her breath. He looks like he ignores her, but he doesn't really. 

The Ocean knows everyone, and that means it knows Maui, too. 

For hundreds of years, it watched him on his island. Maybe it was angry with him for what happened with Te Fiti, or at least it was very disappointed, but it never really meant him any harm; he'll probably never know it, but the Ocean took care of him all the time that he was there. It made sure there was always plenty of food for him to eat, and it kept the worst of the storms away, and it waited for just the right time before it sent anyone to find him. There could have been dozens of adventurers over the years, strong and brave and skilled and daring, but none of them would have been quite like Moana. The Ocean chose her; it knew exactly what it was doing. 

Now, every time she's left Motunui for the past six months, the Ocean has brought them together. Maybe they don't always act like it, but it knows they're pleased. 

"Do you have anything to eat around here?" Moana asks. 

"Well, sure," he replies. "What kind of demigod would I be if I couldn't catch a few fish?"

She frowns. She eyes him suspiciously. "When you say _caught_ , you don't mean you turned into a shark and scooped them up with your mouth, right?"

"No! I turned into a bird and scooped them up with my beak. Totally different thing." 

She sighs. She sits up, so he does the same. 

"Don't you ever use that fish hook for, you know, _fishing_?" she asks, gesturing at it. 

He picks it up and turns it over in his hands. He squints at her. "Don't you think it's kinda big for tuna?"

"That's a really convenient excuse." She crosses her arms over her chest. "Have you _ever_ caught anything with it?" 

"You mean apart from the sun, and all these islands, and a bunch of really big monsters that wanted to eat all you people?" 

Maui's tattoo tells the stories in ten seconds of moving pictures. Moana tilts her head. 

"Are you going to tell me those stories _again_?" she asks. 

He frowns. "Maybe?"

She stands herself up and dusts the sand off her hands and her skirt and her hair. She holds out one hand to him. She grins. 

"Tell me over dinner," she says, and he smiles back and takes her hand and there's no way that she's big enough to pull him up and the Ocean knows she knows that, and it knows that Maui knows, too. Maui pulls her down and she lands on top of him with an amused shriek. He brushes her hair back from her face with both his big hands. Moana never tires of hearing Maui's stories just like Maui never tires of telling them, but the one he likes to tell her most of all is the one they lived together. 

The Ocean knows them better than they know themselves; it brought them together to save Motunui and to save the world, but it knew it couldn't stop there. 

Maui stands and he tosses Moana over his shoulder and he carries her away toward the fire he's built but not lit just yet, where he's left the fish. He caught enough for two, like he was expecting her, and she half-protests as they go but she knows and he knows and the Ocean knows that she doesn't really mean it because she's laughing out loud. 

The Ocean knows her better than she knows herself. It knows she knows how to read the signs that take her to him. And it knows she knows she doesn't need to follow them. 

They sit down to cook as the sun starts to set. They sit shoulder to shoulder. Her hand brushes his. They smile. 

The Ocean chose her. And maybe it nudged them, but in the end they've both chosen each other.


End file.
